Like Good Whiskey in Bad Wounds
by Gretch Goodwin
Summary: (Diablo II) A young Amazon looking to make a name for herself leaves home to investigate rumors of war in the West, near a place called Tristram. Arriving only to hear that the battle under Tristram has already been won, she sets out for home. On the way, near the Tristram Road, she meets a mysterious man who tells her that she may not be too late after all, but only just in time.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Okay, so. A lot of this content is going to be very AU in a post-Diablo 3 world because I came up with the original characters and general plot about eleven years ago. And if you've been around this site for a while, and these characters seem familiar to you, just pretend you didn't see anything; it's best to just let sleeping middle-grade OCs lie.

 **Like Good Whiskey in Bad Wounds**

 **I.**

" _I had a good home but I left  
_ _I had a good home but I left, right, left  
_ _That big fucking bomb made me deaf, deaf  
_ _A Humvee mechanic put his Kevlar on wrong  
_ _I guarantee you'll meet up with a suicide bomb  
_ _And Hell broke luce . . ."  
_ _-Tom Waits_

The road from the East to Khanduras had been long and hard, an adventure in itself, and—disappointed as she was—Alexa was glad to be seeing the end of it. By the time she'd reached the Western kingdoms, she already had a haversack bursting with swag and a head bursting with songs; doubtless her name was already being whispered around the council-fires of her home islands. For one of her people to leave their seclusion at all was rare; to seek war in the West was a thing nearly unheard of.

Even so, the thought was small consolation for the fact that she had arrived in Khanduras to find the war over and Diablo bested. The wilderness still teemed with infernal monsters, but such fighting was below her station; little gold and less glory to be had in mopping up the remnants of an already broken foe, though it had allowed her to barter passage on an eastbound caravan. However disgraced and inglorious, the scattered servants of Hell could still kill, and reliable men were of late in short supply.

The caravan's leader, an amicable Easterling called Wariv, snapped her out of her woolgathering as he tapped her shoulder and said, "We're passing by the Tristram Road. You asked me to let you know."

Sitting up in the wagon, Alexa looked at the fork in the road, sighed, and said, "I'd almost like to go down that road, see for myself the measure of the man who made it there in time."

"I'd like to go myself, if there were time, "Wariv said. "The villagers must be having quite a hoolie."

"Yes, I—Wait!"

She jumped from the moving wagon and began studying the dirt track.

Wariv waved for the teamsters to stay their oxen and asked, "What is it? Something wrong?"

She ran her eyes over the footprints and wagon ruts leading up and down the road. "Only one set of tracks here is remotely fresh—two men's footprints leaving, about two days ago. The rest are a week old at the least."

"Queer," said Wariv, thinking back on the periodic attacks against his caravan, the fact that they'd been increasing these past few days. "Very queer. What do you suggest, Alexa?"

She hopped deftly back into her seat. "I say we keep moving. We can ask after the mystery once we reach the Rogues' Pass."

"Sound advice. The Monastery is only a few days away; it'll be good to sleep in such safety again."

"Wariv, we've passed nothing but fallow farms and empty houses since halfway through Westmarch. Will the Pass be open to us?"

"I have no fear of that, at least. The Rogues are fierce soldiers, and their Monastery is unassailable. Didn't you see it on your way west?"

"No. I went around it to the north."

"Through the mountains?"

"Aye. And I'm not making that mistake again."

* * *

When night drew on, they stopped and made camp along the road, drawing the wagons into a circle with armed men about it. Alexa readied her bow and arrows and moved silently about the perimeter.

A rustling in the forest across the road drew her attention. Whatever made the sound was too large to be an animal, or one of the small red demons that endlessly harried them, but too clumsy to be a demon of larger stature. In these abandoned, woods, in this empty region, there was a man stalking about their perimeter.

Alexa moved off. Not even along the deepest forest roads had they seen any signs of banditry, and the few people they'd encountered since leaving Westmarch had all been friendly and helpful, if frightened. Whoever the mysterious interloper was, it was doubtful that he would be of any threat to them; men had set aside their differences in the wake of the inhuman invasion.

The shuffling footsteps moved off. Several minutes of silence followed, which ate at Alexa's nerves; a forest is never silent. On a safe and wholesome night, the forest would be ringing with the noise of insects and night birds. Silence meant only one thing: the life filling the forest was afraid to be heard. It could be another man, or a wolf or bear or catamount, or it could be something worse.

Alexa heard movement from the same copse of oaks where the human sounds had been minutes ago. She heard a chorus of small sets of noises, all moving in discord, trying and failing to be silent. She nocked an arrow and backed into cover, not wanting to alert the other guards for fear of letting the whatever-they-were know she was onto them.

 _"Rakanishu!"_

A small, red demon of the same sort that had harried them throughout their journey launched itself from the trees, spear at the ready. Alexa let fly her arrow and felled the beast soundlessly before it had fully left the woods. She waited for the others she knew were behind to run off until they'd built up enough courage to attack again, as had always happened before. The moment never came. Instead of a furious running about, there was total silence.

 _"Bishibosh!"_

With that cry, two things happened. The demon on the ground twitched, wrenched the arrow from its chest, and stood up. And as Alexa was watching the spectacle, a ball of flame shot past her, missing her head by inches, and sundered on a tree behind her, burning away the bark and throwing off cinders.

She turned and sprinted back to the caravan, yelling for the guards to make ready. A frenzied gibbering chased at her heels, and as she vaulted over one of the wagons she turned to see a band of at least thirty demons charging the barricades. Though the demons backed away whenever one of their own was killed, it would swiftly rise again and the advance would renew. Alexa peppered them with arrows as quickly as they came, but they saw no way to halt them.

When one of the demons fell with its hand on the edge of a wagon, a taller demon holding a staff stepped into the open and raised its hands. As the staff rose, the slain demons twitched and stirred. From its empty hand projected a ball of flame which smote one of the wagons, setting it alight. As the demons chittered in triumph, Alexa nocked a new arrow, drew, and took aim.

Before she could loose, two bolts of something white flew out of the darkness and ran the taller demon through. Its minions howled in fright and scattered into the darkness. The dead remained dead. When the last of the demons had disappeared into the woods, a man came shambling out. He was young, slightly built, haggard, with ivory hair and skin the color of milk. He was filthy, walked with a limp, and he clutched a dagger in his right hand. When the stranger reached the gap in the enclosure made by the expulsion of the burning wagon, he sank to the ground and hung his head.

"Need help, friend?" asked one of the men.

"Drink," said the stranger, though his voice was cracked and barely a whisper.

They rushed him a water-skin. He sniffed the contents and handed it back, shaking his head. One of the travelers brought him a demijohn of rum, which he gulped down quickly.

"What's your name, stranger?"

He shook his head and continued drinking.

"Are you hurt?"

No response.

"Where are you headed?"

He dropped the now-empty jug onto the ground and whispered, "Far away. Far, far away from this forsaken place."

* * *

The caravan picked up and continued east with sunrise; save for a few piddling encounters with the short, red demons who gave them no peace, they made good time. The stranger sat deep in the wains of the lead wagon as though hiding from something, and save for occasional requests for more alcohol, he was silent.

Alexa sat next to Wariv at the head of the procession, scanning the road ahead for enemies. There were a few wild beasts, a few of the annoysome demons, but their groups were small in number and they gave the caravan a wide berth.

"We'll be in the Monastery in two days' time," said Wariv, "or by tomorrow night if we keep up this pace. Then we shall leave all of this diabolical foolishness behind us."

"Until you have to go to Westmarch again," Alexa said.

"With Diablo vanquished, his minions will fade away and the land will heal. In time, things will return to a semblance of normalcy."

The caravan moved through rolling green hills that had been farms and pastures until recently. Demons and beasts prowled around them, but—being few in number—did not approach. Near sunset, they crested a hill to find the road blocked by a crude redoubt; a hastily-raised earthen mound topped by a timber stockade stood directly in the middle of the highway.

Wariv waved for the caravan to stop, and Alexa went forth to investigate. She jogged up to the palisade and was stopped by a group of Rogues, obviously so from their red-brown uniforms and the bows over their shoulders. After a short palaver, she jogged back to the caravan to relay what she'd been told, her face grim.

"They say . . ." She gulped. "Wariv, they say Diablo escaped Tristram. They say he heads east in the guise of a man. They say their Monastery has fallen to attack. They welcome us to shelter in their redoubt, but that the eastbound road is closed."

From behind them, the white-haired stranger laughed and laughed.


	2. Chapter 2

**II.**

" _Well I cam here fae the gargle, not to cop a blast  
_ _Ye great thick-heeded ape, I'll stave yer chin right out yer arse  
_ _Cam lookin fae yer pound o' flesh, though I got nothin' left  
_ ' _Cause Christian brothers and Brides o' Christ hae flogged me half tae death_

 _Suck on this, ye succubus, yer star will never rise  
_ _Ye've the smell o' death about yer breath and bullet holes fer eyes  
_ _I wish that I was sober the day I made ye mine  
_ _Now shut the fickin' door behind ye, thank ye fae yer time_

 _Bastards, a shower o' pricks, the likes ye've never known  
_ _Rake 'em, break 'em, Devil may take 'em  
_ _Down tae Hell Below . . ."_

 _-The Rumjacks_

Slowly, under guard, the caravan filed into the redoubt's narrow entrance while the stranger laughed, a sad fey grin on his face. The redoubt was a sickening sight; the Rogues fit for fighting—they looked to be fewer than a hundred—stood all armed and all frightened about the edges, while the elders of the Sisterhood and a few local refugees huddled—cowered—in the interior. While the merchants and travelers went about putting up tenets around their wagons and hobbling their oxen, Warriv and Alexa went to make introductions. The stranger tagged along behind.

They were met near the fort's entrance by two women, one old and wearing the robes of a priestess, the other middle-aged and girded for war. The elder spoke first.

"I am Akara," she said, "High Priestess of the Sisterhood of the Sightless Eye. As Kashya told this young woman, we have been driven from our Monastery at great cost and, sadly, the road East is closed."

"A tragedy," Warriv said, his brows furrowed. "How did that happen?"

The younger of the pair spoke. "one night, shortly after the news of Diablo's defeat had reached us, a strange man clad all in black came through travelling east. He spent the night with Sister Blood Raven, who had fought Diablo under Tristram, and moved on the next day. That night, Blood Raven—who was my sergeant-at-arms—betrayed us."

The stranger laughed.

Kashya glared at him. "Is something funny, stranger? Because I'm sure you can guess my feelings on strange men who don't speak travelling east."

"No, no, it isn't funny at all," he said, "much the opposite. I apologize. Please, continue."

"I was awakened late in the evening to find that a battle was raging and a third of my Sisters had turned against me. We would've stomped the traitors into the dust, but . . ."

"The dead began to rise in the Catacombs," Akara said. "There was no hope of repulsing them. Loyal Sisters began to flee, first individually, then the whole of us."

"You may try the East Road if it suits you," said Kashya, "but it means death."

A fire had been growing in Alexa's eyes, listening to the story. With a bold grin, she said, "I'll re-open the Pass, and I'd be glad to do it."

Kashya gave a bitter laugh. "Three hundred Rogues tried to hold the Monastery; they were worsted and sundered. You think one woman can retake it? That's insane."

"I'll do it or else die trying, and I'll relish every minute of it. I came to the West to join the fight against Diablo under Tristram; chance has given me an opportunity to make up for being too late. Besides, my people have always done what yours can't."

Before Kashya could answer the challenge, the stranger grabbed Alexa's arm and asked, "Lut Gholein is just a few weeks' journey from here, isn't it?"

"Aye."

"How long to bypass through the mountains?"

"Three, four months, depending on the weather."

"You'll have my help opening the Pass, then."

"Hmm. Why so talkative all of a sudden?"

"Rathma. I need to get to Rathma as soon as possible. I have to get out of this place."

A refugee overhearing the conversation laughed and said, "You're out of luck there, boy. Even if you do make it to Lut Gholein, evil travels faster than any of us ever could; how long do you think you have until Lord Jerhyn closes his ports?"

The Necromancer looked up at the sky, sighed, and said, "I need a fucking drink."

* * *

Near nightfall, Alexa came to the Necromancer's tent and found him splayed out on his bedroll, nursing a jug of wine.

"May I come in?" she asked.

"Piss off."

She entered and hunkered next to him, said, "I want to know who you are."

"I'm nobody. Leave me alone."

She reached into her haversack and produced a green glass vessel. "you strike me as a man who enjoys a drink. I cheated this off of that Gheed creature travelling with the caravan. Westroni corn spirit, brewed in Kingsport over a century ago."

"And you'll give that to me, in return for . . ."

"Information. You were at Tristram." It wasn't a question.

"What makes you so sure of that?"

"You found us just east of the Tristram Road. You look and act like you've seen Hell."

"Do you have a point?"

"You also want to go east pretty badly. I've heard it said that three heroes fought at Tristram: A Westroni soldier, a Rogue, and a magician from the East."

The Necromancer spit out his wine and laughed. There was humor in the laugh, but it was dark and said. "I want to go home, woman. That's what lies at the end of this road for me. Rathma. Home. My people. Are you saying you think I'm the third fallen hero? Honestly?"

"You are a Necromancer."

"You have no idea."

"So tell me."

"Piss off."

"Who are you?"

"I'm a very, very tired man who wants to go home very badly. Now, if you would be so kind, piss off and let me drink my wine in peace."

Alexa started to leave, and had a thought. She uncapped the whiskey, took a drink, and handed the jug over. "My name is Alexa, daughter of Skadu."

"I'm Dolos, son of none. Thank you for the drink. Now, please, leave me alone."

"I will. But we leave at first light."

"Good. The sooner, the better."

She left.


End file.
